Manual of Style
A manual of style is a style guide to present information in a consistent and standard fashion. Consistency promotes simplicity and ease of use. The SHARP Network uses the Chicago Manual of Style for its overall style.
For a quick guide on how to make edits to the SHARP Network, please read the Quick How To. If you are unsure about a stylistic point, refer to that, for more information on how to use wiki code, please refer to Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
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Style and Citations
- You must always use a formal tone, and in the third person. Writing in a formal tone promotes consistency, professionalism, and objectivity.
- You must write from a neutral point of view. The SHARP Network is meant to provide non-partisan information on issues, representatives, and candidates, You must not submit any disparaging, false, or damaging statements.
- You must always cite your sources. Citations provide for verification and accountability. Try to verify the reliability of your source, and provide multiple sources when something is controversial. The better a claim is cited, the easier it is to verify its reliability. Uncited and unsubstantiated claims are likely to be removed.
- You must always date the position or event. To track how representatives' stances have changed over time and whether representatives and candidates have stayed consistent in their platforms, it is necessary to know when they voted or make a statement.
Citations
- Endnotes in the Chicago Manual of Style should be used for all citations.
To generate a footnote, use<ref>...</ref> around the what you wish to reference, and put <references /> at the end of the of the article in a section with the header ===Endnotes===. Though your citation is made inline, the server will move the citations to the bottom.
- Between the tags <ref> and </ref>, type in the author of the article, title of the article, the year in which the article was published, and the link address of the article, each followed by a period. An example is provided as follows:
Obama released a [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031303826.html?nav=rss_politics/congress list] of all the earmarks he had requested in the two years he served in the U.S. Senate.<ref>Matthew Mosk. Obama lists requests for pet-project funding. March 14, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031303826.html?nav=rss_politics/congress</ref>
Endnotes
Headings and Section Management
Section headings
- Section and subsection names should be unique within a page.
- Unspaced multiple equal signs are the style markup for headings. The triple apostrophes ( ''' ) that make words appear in boldface are not used in headings. Nest headings correctly. The hierarchy is as follows:
- primary headings are ==H2==, followed by ===H3===, ====H4====.
Section management
- Headings provide an overview in the table of contents and allow readers to navigate through the text more easily.
- Change a heading only after careful consideration. Doing so will break section links. If you do change a heading, try to locate and fix broken links; for example, searching for "section management" will probably yield links to the current section.
- When linking to a section, leave an editor's note to remind others that the title is linked. List the names of the linking articles, so that if the title is altered, others can fix the links more easily.
- Italicize the section heading only if it otherwise requires italics (such as the title of a book).
- When referring to a section without linking, italicize the section name; for example, the current section is called Section management.
Usage
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Since not everybody may know an acronym, all acronyms and abbreviations must be spelled out the first occurrence followed by the abbreviation in parentheses to prevent confusion. For example, “Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting good science policy.”
Bill Naming, Numbering and Citation
Bill Naming
Since bills may have multiple titles and some bills may have the same title, the full name of a bill must be spelled out the first time it is used, followed by its abbreviation, followed by the bill number (e.g., the Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act, (COMPETES), H.R. 2272). Either the abbreviation or the bill number should be used afterwards. Do not use quotation marks around the bill title, if emphasis is needed, italicize the title. If the abbreviation of a bill is similar to another, the bill number should be used to prevent confusion.
Bill Numbering
- H.R. indicates a bill that originates in the House of Representatives.
- H. Res. stands for House Resolution, these pertain only to the House and do not make laws.
- S. indicates a bill that originates in the Senate.
- S. Res. stands for Senate Resolution, these bills pertain only to the Senate and do not make laws.
- H. Con. Res. stands for House Concurrent Resolution, these originate in the House and must pass both the House and Senate. S. Con. Res. stands for Senate Concurrent Resolution, these measures originates in the Senate but must be passed by both chambers and do not make laws. Both House and Senate Concurrent Resolutions are signed by the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate, but not the President.
Bill Citation
Once the bill is properly named and numbered, it needs to be cited. To do so, paste the link into brackets with the name and number of the bill you would like it to hyperlink to. Please make sure that there is a space between the link address and the text containing the hyperlink. Usually, bill text can be found on the Library of Congress website www.thomas.loc.gov, where one could get the link address and contents of the bill. For example, the citation for the SPACE Act should look like this: [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:1:./temp/~c110xu54ob:: Spacefaring Priorities for America's Continued Exploration Act, (SPACE), H.R.4837]
Images and Video
The SHARP Network allows for embedding streaming videos as well as images. The following general guidelines should be followed in the absence of a compelling reason to do otherwise.
- Start an article with a right-aligned image or video.
- Multiple images in the same article can be staggered right-and-left.
- Avoid sandwiching text between two images facing each other.
- Generally, right-alignment is preferred to left- or center-alignment.
- Exception: Portraits with the head looking to the reader's right should be left-aligned (looking into the text of the article) when this does not interfere with navigation or other elements. In such cases, it may be appropriate to move the Table of Contents to the right by using {{TOCright}}. Since faces are not perfectly symmetrical, do not use photo editing software to reverse images.
- Do not place left-aligned images directly below second-level (
===) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes. Instead, either right-align the image, remove it, or move it to another relevant location. - Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article.
- Specifying the size of a thumbnail image is not necessary: without specifying a size, the width will be what readers have specified in their user preferences, with a default of 180px (which applies for the overwhelming majority of readers), and a maximum of 300px. However, the image subject or image properties may call for a specific image width to enhance the readability or layout of an article. Cases where a specific image width is appropriate include:
- images with extreme aspect ratios
- detailed maps, diagrams or charts
- images in which a small region is relevant, but cropping to that region would reduce the coherence of the image
- a lead image that captures the essence of the article (recommended not to be smaller than 300px, as this will make the image smaller for users who have set 300px in their user preferences).
- Some users need to configure their systems to display large text; forced large thumbnails can leave little width for text, making reading difficult.
Images
The current image markup for landscape-format and square images is:
[[Image:picture.jpg|thumb|right|Insert caption here]]
and for portrait-format images:
[[Image:picture.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Insert caption here]]
Video
The current markup for embedding videos is:
{{#ev:SERVICE|ID|width in pixels |right}}
SHARP Network can embed videos from dailymotion, funnyordie, googlevideo, sevenload, revver, and youtube.
Links
Since the SHARP Network is built with Wordpress as its driving content management system, wikilinks cannot be used. You must use markup for external links to link to any page on the site. For example:
[http://sharp.sefora.org/issues/education/ Education]